"Just A Game"

A long, long time ago...probably in the first year or two of this blog...I tried (at least on one or two occasions) to communicate my feelings for the RPG hobby and D&D specifically...the profundity of the thing, this activity, this game. Yes, yes, it's FUN...of course it's fun, duh...but I somehow have long felt that it is somehow important, too. And I tried to name why I felt that way (that this silly game of fantasy adventure was somehow "important"), and pretty much failed to find the words. Or even the reason.

Over the years (sheesh, 15+ I've been blogging!), I gradually came to the conclusion that the reason, if there was one, didn't really matter at all. The game was important to me, and that was enough. Perhaps whatever intuition I had that made me feel D&D somehow mattered on a larger scale than "personal" was confused narcissism: a justification of my own passion/obsession for the hobby. Lots of people have passions and obsessions; just throw me in the same category as collectors of stamps or baseball cards, rather than the research scientist looking for a cancer cure.

[by the way, I can make a case for the value of collecting; apologies if I offended with that last sentence]

However, as time has continued to pass and our world has continued to trend in a particular direction, I've come back to this inner feeling, this idea that gaming...specifically D&D gaming...is important and does have value beyond just being a "fun game." Surprisingly, I feel its importance more than ever in its value of creating human connection between people. Not just in the way that shared fandom of a sports franchise cuts across boundaries of race, gender, religion, economic background, etc. (one of the great things about sports), but in the way it promotes shared activity between people. If I'm wearing my Seahawk jersey (as I will be tonight in a Lord-I-hope-we-win game against the damnable Rams) I can make eye contact, nod, high five, or dap up any other person wearing the same jersey, no matter what our respective backgrounds happen to be. But playing D&D, I can sit down with someone and share an intimate imaginative space, holding discourse and trading ideas. D&D allows people to have a 'meeting of the minds' on a deeper level than most any activity outside our non-shared spaces (family, school, church, workplace, etc.). 

That shared activity is so much more profound than just shared recognition. 

So there's that. And I think that meaning and value and "importance" is going to become more meaningful and more valuable and more important as our world continues to move in the same direction it's been going the last decade or two. We'll see.

By the way, this holds true for any RPG, or any edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Those 5E people who are playing the game in a fashion unrecognizable to moi? They're still making human connections. That's a good thing...we NEED more human interaction between our fellow humans. So...yay!

HOWEVER, while that's the underlying importance of RPGs (as I see it), and something many (most?) of us might agree on, there are additional benefits to playing AD&D that I hadn't quite noticed until just recently...this morning, in fact...that, in my estimation, elevates my chosen edition in certain subtle ways above the hoi polloi of other RPGs, especially those with "modern sensibilities" like 5E and Shadowdark.

AD&D, in particular, is not about self-expression or collaborative storytelling. It is a structured game with fixed procedures, real consequences, non-subjective objectives of play, and an impartial referee. That structure creates trust which, in turn, enables risk. The risk makes choices matter, and out of that comes real camaraderie.

AD&D quietly teaches...and reinforces...things that modern life tends to erode:

• Respect for External Authority (the game has rules that exist outside personal preference)
• Negotiation Within Constraints (you can't just "try anything;" choices have costs)
• Delayed Gratification (progress is earned, not guaranteed or a matter of fiat)
• Risk Acceptance (failure is real and consequential)
• Social Trust (the DM is neither adversary nor servant, but the facilitator of the game/world)

While many modern games claim to support "social play," they generally shift authority inward (play "what feels right"), cushion failure, automate judgment, and prioritize individual expression over group coherence. Meanwhile, in AD&D authority (i.e. the rules) is external and known, the outcomes are constrained by procedure, failure is both possible and meaningful, and the group (based on the PREMISE OF THE GAME) is forced to work and adapt together.

This produces consistency, and it is through that consistency that trust is earned; it is not negotiated minute by minute.

What makes this especially powerful is that AD&D does all this while masquerading as nothing more than a game. It doesn't lecture, or moralize, or have some grand statement of "this is important." Instead, it presents the rules, a dungeon, and asks 'what do you do?' And week after week, the people playing:

• learn to listen
• learn to plan
• learn to balance risk
• learn to accept loss
• learn to trust someone else's judgment

All in the presence of others.

There is something deeply valuable about a game that requires presence, attention, cooperation, and acceptance of outcomes that cannot be endlessly revised or curated. Yes, AD&D is "just a game," but it's the kind of game that we could stand to have more of. The longer I live, the more I appreciate it.